Illinois · Nonprofit
ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES
ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES (Illinois) receives grants from 165 organizations whose IRS filings report $16,796,224 to it, the largest being CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION ($2,471,350). 105 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.8M
- Funders on record
- 165
- Grants received
- $17M
- Net assets
- $15M
What Alliance for the Great Lakes does
Mission
To protect, conserve, and restore the great lakes, ensuring healthy water in the lakes and in our communities for all generations of people and wildlife.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Advocacy & leadership: advocacy & leadership illustrates how the alliance partners with community organizations, businesses, civic groups and decision-makers to develop actionable solutions to protect our lakes and give voice to individual communities. This year our advocacy helped propel several initiatives forward where the alliance has taken a leadership role for many years. Construction began on the brandon road lock & dam project to stop invasive carp from entering lake michigan. Our team analyzed and communicated the potential effects on states and communities of proposed cuts to federal water infrastructure funding and the cuts never materialized. We continued to support a broad-based effort to clean up the great lakes through the great lakes restoration initiative and successfully defended great lakes science programs from proposed cuts. Each is an example of the alliance's role in helping shape policy and drive solutions that improve the lives of residents of the great lakes region.
$1,345,632 spent$7,617 earned by the program28% of program spendingEducation & action: education & action is how the alliance activates residents, by giving them access to information and programs that motivate them to become individual advocates for the lakes. In 2025, the alliance's efforts resulted in nearly 13,000 messages send from our supporters to elected officials and government agencies to pass laws and regulations to protect the lakes. More than 10,000 volunteers removed more than 500,000 pieces of litter from beaches on all five great lakes through the adopt-a-beach program.
$1,684,745 spent$9,537 earned by the program35% of program spendingResearch & analysis: research & analysis supports the alliance's advocacy agendas by pairing data and scientific research with policy recommendations for the lakes. In 2025, the alliance released several reports that showcase these efforts. We released a groundbreaking report on the proliferation of large-scale water users in the great lakes region, such as data centers and agriculture, and called for greater transparency and policy solutions that support economic development while protecting the region's water supply. In conjunction with our partner clean wisconsin, we released a report showing how thousands of households in wisconsin are paying higher water costs and suffering increased health risks due to nitrate pollution from livestock farms entering their water supply. As a part of the state revolving fund advocates forum, we co-authored a report that highlighted the past 3 years of the forum's work and documented successes in the effort to gain more equitable access to water infrastructure funding.
$1,716,314 spent$9,715 earned by the program36% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $4,746,691.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $6.5M to $11M (+75%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 6% · 2022 3% · 2023 1% · 2024 21% · 2025 18%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Joel Brammeier
President & CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 31 funders to 77 funders, grant income rose $1.2M → $2.7M.
22 of 165 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 165 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 15% of grant income, and it takes 7 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 7 funders to its left
26% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 32% · 2018 24% · 2019 24% · 2020 21% · 2021 21% · 2022 11% · 2023 20% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
49% of ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 64% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES draws 61% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 27 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Government funding ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.3M on record.
- Environmental Protection Agency$2.3M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
67%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 6 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES?
- ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES (Illinois) receives grants from 165 organizations whose IRS filings report $16,796,224 to it, the largest being CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION ($2,471,350). 105 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES have?
- IRS filings report 165 organizations giving $16,796,224 in grants to ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES, 105 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES?
- CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,471,350 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Alliance for the Great Lakes →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 165 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing